Labour Sending Our Local Post Offices Packing

Cymraeg
English

Eleanor Burnham <info@eburnham.org.uk>

Labour Sending Our Local Post Offices Packing - Burnham

December 20, 2006 10:00 AM

Eleanor Burnham AM has today attacked the Labour government for selling Wales' post offices short, after visiting her local post office staff to get their views on the impending crisis facing the Welsh post office network.

While lobbying the Assembly government to reinstate the Post Office Development Fund, the Welsh Liberal Democrats have been working with their Westminster colleagues to demand a meeting between Welsh post office staff and UK government to discuss the future availability of local services in community post offices.

Ms Burnham, Welsh Liberal Democrat Assembly Member for North Wales, visited her local post office in Rossett, Wrexham to find out exactly what staff there made of the decision by the Department of Trade and Industry to close hundreds of community post offices. Ms Burnham also took the opportunity to see for herself just how the UK government has cut back on the services small post offices are able to provide in the heart of their communities.

Ms Burnham said: "While the Labour Assembly Government continues to resist our campaign to have the Post Office Development Fund reinstated by the government, right now our community post offices are facing a worrying future.

"Today I was speaking to Sub Postmaster Derek Rowlands and Day Manager Yvonne Humphreys in my local post office to get their opinion on Labour's actions. They told me that over the years the government have reduced the services they can provide, severely cutting the ability of post offices like theirs to serve their communities.

"Now the government say they are closing post offices due to a fall in public demand, but this is a fall they have imposed from Westminster. Over the years we have all seen the government scrap pension books; bully those on benefits to take out basic bank accounts; scrap the present Post Office Current Account; remove passport checking; stop TV license stamps and so on. The closures have left the most vulnerable in our communities with miles to go for these most basic services.

"All this, and Labour have the cheek to tell us that local post offices at the heart of our communities are 'uneconomic'.

"I wholeheartedly support the new Daily Post campaign to halt the closure of our small rural post offices in North Wales. The Welsh Liberal Democrats will continue to do everything possible both at home and in Westminster to secure a better future for the post offices that keep our communities alive."

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